Google Declares War on Low-Quality Content Websites

Google announced today they launched a large change to their algorithm in order to substantially improve rankings.  They say it is a noticeable impact of 11.8% which will affect rankings for many websites.  Many website owners will not be happy, although the algorithmic change has been a long time coming with much discussion on the Internet over the last year to provide prior warning.

Google believe in a healthy web ecosystem and therefore want to reward high quality content websites.  This particular algorithmic change is being rolled out in the United States first, however it will be implemented around the world within time.

So what is a low-quality website?

• Provides low-value add to users
• Content is copied from other websites
• Sites that are not very useful

Google is interested in displaying high quality sites that possess the following criteria…

• Original content
• Provides content as research
• In-depth reports
• Thoughtful analysis, etc.

Although Google have listed “original content” as being high-quality, what other factors will be used within their algorithm to determine the most relevant, authoritative and “best quality” content to display within search results?  Does length of copy determine high quality?  What about choice of words?  Or use of contrast and comparison?  Number and quality of comments and number of times shared by influentials?

Time will tell as SEOs around the world examine, test and report ranking results.